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Senator Ted Cruz Advanced the Argument to Defund Obamacare

Did House Republicans thank him? Not exactly. In a conference call with bloggers earlier today, House Republican Conference members Sean Duffy, Tom Reed and Rodney Davis 'acknowledged defeat' in the effort to defund Obamacare instead setting their sights on an effort to delay the implementation of Obamacare, an effort championed by House Republican Conference chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rogers.

Suggestions included a one year delay of the individual mandate and allowing states to claim temporary exemptions from Obamacare. Congressman Davis expressed a frustration about the inability to return to regular constitutional order so as to implement true spending cuts. Another idea that was floated included tying the implementation of Obamacare to such a return so that the implementation of Obamacare would be temporarily delayed for the length of the term of each continuing resolution. Other ideas included a so-called ‘Fair CR’ eliminating special exemptions and subsidies for Members of Congress and others.

Earlier in the week on the Laura Ingraham radio show, Congressman Duffy remarked “Thank God he [Cruz] wasn’t fighting at the Alamo!” suggesting that Cruz’s calls to filibuster the House continuing resolution in order to prevent Harry Reid from stripping language to defund Obamacare amounted to ‘surrender.’ What Congressman Duffy failed to appreciate is that Senator Cruz’s filibuster effort helped refocus the nation’s attention on many of the ills of Obamacare including the devastating effect it is having on employment. Senators Cruz and Lee never guaranteed that their strategy would cause the demagogue that is President Obama to suddenly wake up and suggest that these guys have a valid point. Rather, as successful experience litigators, both knew that if Republicans stood united with the base of their party and did not repeat the mistake of past budget battles of negotiating with themselves in public, they would be able to force President Obama and Congressional Democrats to the negotiating table and advance the cause of delaying, defunding and dismantling Obamacare, a cause the every Republican member of Congress claims to support.

Congressman Duffy seemed to express a frustration that the idea of tying the defunding of Obamacare to the passage of a continuing resolution seemed to be sprung on the House of Representatives at the last minute. What this demonstrates is that Senators Cruz and Lee are correct. Congress is not listening to the American people. How else to explain the nearly two million signatures on the national petition to defund Obamacare in less than two months. http://dontfundit.com. If Republican Congressman and Senators want to repeat their 2010 electoral success in 2014, they would do well to pay attention to events of the past two months and tailor their agenda accordingly.

I'd say at this point the Democrats couldn't be any more pleased with what's happening right now: The GOP painted themselves into a corner. They aren't going to be able to stop Obamacare, and so they decided to make a pointless last stand. In the end, Americans will blame them if they refuse to budge and the government grinds to a halt. This will in turn hurt their image, which already isn't exactly stellar in the eyes of most Americans. But either way... Your side lost. Get over it and find something more constructive to do besides making the GOP part of some weird 3-rung circus...

I think you might want to look up what the term " Irony" means. But nevertheless, Its not I who is stating the obvious. At this point more recent polls show something like 51% of all Americans will blame the GOP if the government shuts down. At this point the GOP has tried for over 40 times to defund Obamacare- all efforts that were knowingly and willingly symbolic since none of those efforts had any chance of ever passing the senate. So at this point most Americans see this latest effort as more of the same. But the sad thing is that the GOP has wasted an astronomical amount of their time- time which should have been spent on more pressing concerns- on trying to stop something they can't. When you start having major Republican campaign managers, high- ranking GOP congressmen, and even business organizations telling the GOP they are basically digging themselves into a hole then that to me should signal to them that hey- maybe this isn't a good idea. But too late- they'll probably do it anyway. here's the thing: I grew up in a split political household: One side was Republican, the other Democrat. We got along fairly well because the debates were typically respectful and reasonable. I'm not saying the Democrats are totally innocent here, but the GOP needs to get out of this rut they've been in for years now. The brand of politics they think they should be going after is not a style that works anymore. But either way, I'm certainly not biting my nails on this particular issue. Obamacare will start in October and the GOP is possibly going to need to do some PR to repair the damage that will be done to their image if they actually succeed in shutting down the government. All you need to do is look back to the 90's last time the GOP tried a cute stunt like this one...

Advocates of government intervention in markets usually frame the debate as a binary choice: “We need government to run things so the evil corporations don’t!” It’s an effective tactic, because most people have an inherent distrust of big business, and like the idea of a less money-grubbing alternative. Most of the time, Republicans they foolishly play into the narrative, arguing that given the choice between corporate masters or government ones, we should choose the former. Unsurprisingly, few people are convinced by this, and they shouldn’t be. The whole debate is based on a false dilemma that doesn’t exist. The discussion should not be about choosing our rulers, it should be about choosing whether to be ruled in the first place. As the 19th century individualist Lysander Spooner said, “a man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.”

Big Government Caters to Crony Capitalism
In the Democrat presidential debate, Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT), an avowed socialist from Vermont, alluded to crony capitalism. “I'm running for president because as I go around this nation I talk to a lot of people. And what I hear is people concerned that the economy we have is a rigged economy.”

Following the news the UnitedHealth Group, the largest insurance company in the United States, is scaling back its ObamaCare marketing and considering withdrawing from the exchanges, FreedomWorks CEO Adam Brandon commented:

The irreparable structural flaws of ObamaCare are being revealed at a frightening pace. 12 of the state insurance co-ops have failed, insurance premiums just keep rising, enrollment is predicted to be flat, the majority of newly insured Americans have actually just been shoved into Medicaid, and the insurance companies are asking for billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts to forestall even steeper price hikes. ObamaCare is dismantling and destabilizing the entire infrastructure of our health care system, and it’s hurting real people.

The House of Representatives’ ObamaCare reconciliation bill doesn’t go far enough. The Senate now has the opportunity to improve upon it by sending legislation that fully repeals ObamaCare to the president’s desk. Unfortunately, some Senate Republicans are content to go along with the House’s timid piecemeal approach.

Last week, I wrote about how insurance companies are receiving only a fraction of the money they asked for to compensate them for losses under the Affordable Care Act, and how this was a consequence of structural weaknesses in the design of the law. Now, analysts from ratings firm Standard and Poor's are saying that the risk corridor fund charged with providing this money is nearly exhausted, and that congressional action will likely be required to refill it sometime next year.

Ever since home brewing was legalized in the late 1970s, the craft beer industry has become one of America's most vibrant examples of entrepreneurship and small business. It doesn't take much more than some barley, some hops, and a dream to start your own private microbrewery, and if you're good at it, you could become a nationally recognized brand.

An old rhetorical question asks: "If social Security is such a great deal, why is it mandatory?" A topically apt paraphrase of this would be: "if ObamaCare is so good for health care, why is the president still struggling to sell it five years after it became law?" What does it say about a policy that people refuse to take advantage of - and I use the word "advantage" very loosely - without significant arm twisting? Even though it has been made flat out illegal not to purchase health insurance, millions of people are still staying far, far away from ObamaCare's insurance exchanges, because they know that the legal penalty will actually be less painful than participating in the government-controlled health insurance market.

It's always a good idea to look at the incentive structure behind any public policy. Analyzing how people are induced to behave, and the consequences of those behaviors, is a pretty good indication of whether a plan will succeed or fail. ObamaCare is too vast an example to take all at once, but new information sheds light on a particular piece of the health care law is contributing to the skyrocketing price of insurance.